


Glass Walls

by DearDiary



Series: Tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Broadchurch, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Kidnapping, Love, Rose has never met the Doctor, Swearing, a dash of hurt/comfort, a lot of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearDiary/pseuds/DearDiary
Summary: Alec and Rose have a row after she was abducted during the investigation.
Relationships: Alec Hardy/Rose Tyler
Series: Tumblr prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197311
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Glass Walls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingerteaandsympathy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerteaandsympathy/gifts).



> This one is for @gingerteaonthetardis who asked for the prompt "I broke my rules for you". Hope this one is to your liking.  
> I'm still taking Alec/Rose prompts, see the notes at the end.

It’s been eighteen hours since he had last seen her. If he thought that the pain from bolloxing up the Sandbrook case and watching Miller fall apart after learning the killer of Daniel Latimer was excruciating, he was wrong. 

Alec’s heart wrenches painfully while he is going over the consequences of his team’s actions. His actions, really, as he is their superior. Detective groans and bangs his head on the wall he is leaning on. 

Jenkinson is going to chop his head off. And then strip him off of his DI title. 

Shit! 

At least Rose is safe now. The group that followed the suspect’s lead went to the place dictated by the suspect and retrieved her from the apartment she was held in while Hardy and the criminal were haggling over the severity of said criminal’s punishment. 

Lives were at stake. 

Human trafficking. Hardy felt bile rising in his throat every time he encountered the crime, it didn’t matter if he’s been working in the police forces for 20 years now. It was disgusting. Scary as hell. Traumatising. Brutal. 

And Rose ended up in the middle of the case when he fucking told her not to put herself on the display. Yes, they had the leader of the trafficking mission in custody. No, she wasn’t safe – the rest of the gang were sniffing about, making deals and cleaning up their traces, and they knew that DI Alec Hardy had a weak point. 

Agent Rose Tyler. 

They aren’t working in the same department, and he is definitely not her boss. God forbid something like that ever happens in the precinct. The press will have a field day with such information, and he doesn’t want any more scandalous attention for Rose and him. Especially for Rose – she has been haunted by the press ever since the whiff of their romance reached them, and the only thing that kept the snooping journalists away from Rose was his murderous face and threats to arrest them all for stalking a woman. His woman. The sensation of their affair died down a little, but a small spark like this would have started the fire of gossiping with new vigour. So, he is grateful for not being her superior. 

Hardy squeezes his face with his palms, noisily breathing out. He yelled at her. Over the phone, after she’d been rescued by the team, he went ballistic and abused her verbally for getting caught by the fucking slave-drivers when he told her to stay put. He should have been supportive. Asked her how she was. Was she hurt? For God’s sake, if Rose was hurt, he would murder the bastard who ordered her abduction. Consequences be damned. 

Rose ended up the phone call after he called her a bloody stupid amateur and he nearly went mad thinking she was in danger, again. But the simple phone call to the policewoman who was taking her back to the station confirmed that Rose was fine and refused to give into his pleas to answer the phone call. He couldn’t go and take her to safety himself for the fear of strangling Rose for putting herself at risk and because the interrogation of the suspect wasn’t finished at that moment. 

The longest hour in Hardy’s life. 

And Rose refused to let him hear her voice. 

Hardy all but announced himself a clown in front of the entire station while he was imploring and begging his girlfriend of 8 months to talk to him over the phone. 

Rose asked the policewoman to tell Hardy to go and fuck himself. The policewoman didn’t pass the words because Rose said them loud and clear for Alec to hear from afar. 

Bloody stubborn bloody woman! 

He will lock her in the safe in his office the moment she returns back to the station. 

No, he won’t. She will explode from anger and will be genuinely insulted at him thinking that she isn’t able to fend for herself. Hardy knows Rose hates it when people don’t take her seriously, and it will be a low blow for him to doubt her ability to do her job well. 

Hardy sighs. She can. Rose definitely can fight anyone standing in her or the victim’s way. She can protect herself and anyone in her care. God, this wonderful, magnetic, amazing, brilliant young woman could bend the world to her will yet she isn’t indestructible. 

She doesn’t understand that. 

And there are so many who want to destroy DI Alec Hardy. 

Now they have the ultimate weapon. The woman he loves. 

Agent Rose Tyler. 

The minutes seem to drag on and on while he’s waiting for her to come back, barking orders at the people in the office, dreading the moment he’ll have to return to the trafficking man to go over his sentence. 

Hardy wants to tear Rose apart. 

He wants to hug her for 30 minutes straight and not to let go, begging the universe not to take away what is dear to him. 

~ 

Minutes go by. 

~ 

The moment Rose steps into the room, he goes wild. He barely registers closing the glass door to his office, but whom is he kidding, the glass walls are far from being sound-proof. 

He doesn’t bother closing the blinds, he’s that aggravated. 

Instead of hugging her close to his aching heart, he starts assaulting her verbally. 

“I told you to stay put at the station!” 

“Just who are you to tell me...” 

“I asked you to not throw yourself into danger!” 

“I’m perfectly cap...” 

“In fact, I begged you too, Rose, I fucking begged you not to rush away to follow the lead that turned out to be a plan to bloody abduct you!” 

“I’m fi...” 

“You’re a trained operative, you of all bloody people should know that you are a fucking sitting duck when we’re in the middle of an operation like this!” 

“Now hold on...” 

“You know this, Rose, you know you’re a liability because we’re together, and together means partners, but you don’t seem to think so!” 

Hardy feels bad for interrupting every one of her sentences but he can’t stop. He’s scared shitless that if he stops, he’ll cry. Or he’ll kiss her, right there, in front of the whole bleeding office. 

Rose blows up. 

“Shut up for a moment you wanker! Sergeant Cooper told me there was a phone call about a young woman that was brought into the hotel room by two men. The girl behind the desk was terrified, she thought they took the woman against her will, but she was just drunk and her fiancé asked the barman to help him get her to their room. False alarm, that was, yet how could I not answer the fucking call for help when there are women being trafficked all over the coast?!” oh, she’s huffing and yelling now, and she is poking his chest with her left fist repeatedly to try and make Hardy see her point of view. 

He is not ready to let go of his anger yet. The moment he does so, the empty corners of his soul not filled with Rose will be brimming with paralysing fear. 

Hardy continues lecturing Rose in loud voice. 

“And why the hell were you the one to answer that call? Why didn’t you call for back-up? You’re such an idiot!” 

The blonde is having none of his bullshit. 

“The whole department is working on this operation, there’s not enough stuff to deal with the missing women and you want me to do what, to sit on my chair at the station and paint my fucking nails?” 

He rolls his eyes and snorts. 

“Like you’ve never done that before,” and regrets it a moment later when her right palm connects with his cheek and she yelps at the impact. 

Hardy deflates instantly, watching his beloved Rose’s eyes fill with tears as she clutches her right hand to her chest. 

“What is it?” 

Rose will never not wonder at how Alec’s countenance changes when he speaks to her. This man, all edgy and loud and angry at the world, turns his voice into the gentlest of burrs, rolls his “r” carefully and lowers his volume when it comes to her. 

Now Rose wants to cry because she loves him so much, this Scottish knob. 

She sniffs and wants to kick herself for sounding so pathetic. 

“Dunno, feels funny and hurts when I move it. I think I sprained it when I tried to wrestle out of their hold when they took me in.” 

Alec sighs loudly and crushes Rose into the hug. Close to his heart, just as he wanted to do eighteen hours ago. Rose puts on a brave face and tries not to sniffle, attempts to hide the tears, but the adrenaline rush has passed, and she’s tired and shaken because the case is about the human trafficking. 

She missed him, God, how she missed him, and her arm hurts even more after the slap. 

Hardy runs his hands soothingly over her back, up and down, up and down, such a simple pattern, yet it works miracles on her grated nerves. 

“I broke my rules for you. I never make deals with the suspects,” he admits, quietly. 

“I’m not sorry. That woman could have been another victim,” she replies, and he bites back a smile. Rose. His brave-hearted, headstrong, selfless Rose. 

“I know, love. I’m sorry for yelling at you,” her heart swells with elation when he gives her the term of endearment. She feels special. Alec only calls Daisy and Rose his loves. 

“I’m sorry for slapping you,” Rose chuckles weakly and sniffles again. 

“I’ll never not make a deal to save you, you know that?” Alec needs her to know that. Anything for Rose. 

“I know. I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

They both pretend they don’t notice the people staring at them from behind the glass walls. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @deardiary17 if you want to submit a prompt.


End file.
